Highlighting our Impact: Partnership with HIAS
"The greatest challenge I face is sharing information in a timely manner among our staff, volunteers, and clients. This so often relies on translations happening quickly and in all of the languages our clients understand. Because of our prior inability to get timely translations in languages like Ukrainian and Dari, we’ve been unable to fully succeed, but because of the support we’ve received from Respond Crisis Translation, this is no longer a pain point in our programs."
SJ Renfroe,
HIAS
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your story?
I began at HIAS as an intern in January 2019, and fell in love with the work. I’ve been interested in issues facing migrants and refugees since undergrad and worked with community-based organizations in Central Florida (I’m from the Florida Panhandle) serving undocumented folks, and have since found a platform for providing direct services to mainly asylum seekers and refugees here at HIAS. I studied anthropology in undergrad and human rights for my master’s, and working at HIAS has allowed me to combine these two passions to learn more about people from all over the world and apply my understanding of human rights laws and principles through HIAS’ focus on the refugee rights framework, which structures our work.
Can you tell us about HIAS, its mission, and your team? What is your role and what is your day to day like?
HIAS has been around since 1881 as a refugee-serving organization. We protect the most vulnerable refugees, helping them build new lives and reuniting them with their families in safety and freedom. We advocate for the protection of refugees and assure that displaced people are treated with the dignity they deserve. It’s an honor to work for this organization as a Program Officer for Partnerships and Volunteer Services—which encompasses our wraparound and volunteer services programs. I work as part of the legal team, serving asylum seekers, and the resettlement team, serving refugees through case management and employment services. Day-to-day, this work includes communicating with volunteers and clients around partnerships (including English tutoring and career mentorship), as well as emergency services (relating to food, housing, and other basic needs). I also often communicate with partner organizations (like Respond Crisis Translation!) to connect them with our program or others at HIAS where there can be a partnership, or for our consistent programs including interpretation/translation and our Employment Workshops. I also work with our host organizations, which are large groups of volunteers who are integral to our ability to resettle folks without families here in New York City (given the cost of living here!).
In what ways has the collaboration with Respond Crisis Translation helped your work or allowed you to do new things that you couldn't have done before?
Respond Crisis Translation has been absolutely instrumental in our ability to get documents translated in time for clients’ court dates. In particular, we had a case with many documents in Ukrainian, and we didn’t have volunteer translators who were able to translate from Ukrainian to English. I worked closely with Respond and the team was incredibly helpful, leading us to complete the translation on time. We have also struggled in the past with translating documents that are in Dari/Farsi because of very limited volunteer translation capacity, but again, this problem has been solved through the support provided by Respond Crisis Translation. We look forward to seeing how this partnership will continue to grow, and we are so deeply thankful at HIAS for the opportunity to work with Respond.
What are the greatest challenges inherent in your work? Can you share the language-specific challenges and context that come up frequently?
In my work, the greatest challenge I face is probably ensuring that information is shared in a timely manner among our staff, volunteers, and clients. This so often relies on translations happening quickly and in all of the languages our clients understand, and therefore we’re often stalled by an inability to get items translated through our volunteer network. Because of our prior inability to get timely translations in languages like Ukrainian and Dari, we’ve been unable to fully succeed in this area, but because of the support we’ve received from Respond Crisis Translation, this is no longer a pain point in our programs.
Anything else you’d like to add about the importance of language access to your work, or just anything else you´d like to share about yourself / your work in general?
Language access is paramount for HIAS, since we work with clients from all over the world, many of whom do not speak nor understand English. Respond Crisis Translation has been an essential partner for HIAS’ ability to ensure our clients are able to access information in a timely manner, and we cannot thank you enough for this.
Help us make essential language access support possible for all in need →
Since September 2019, Respond Crisis Translation has fought to provide interpretation and translation services for anyone experiencing language barriers.
